The Gift of Listening
Michele Payn-Knoper, Professional Speaker & Marketing Consultant, Cause Matters Corp.
Want a great gift to give your customers this season? Here’s a simple, cost effective solution… your ears. We've all heard the cliché "God gave you two ears and one mouth for a reason." Yet how many times do you come across salespeople who dominate the conversation and focus more on "their pitch" than the customer? We have two ears to listen closely to customers with, yet we often spend more time focusing on what's going to glide off of our golden tongues. While I do like to talk, I believe we were given 32 teeth to hold our one tongue in place while we put our two ears to use. Many salespeople I’ve worked with have more difficulty with this than you might expect. After all...if you believe in your company and you know your product, then you’re excited to tell them all about it! Keep that enthusiasm in check long enough to ask some thought-provoking questions and then actively listen to the answers. In other words, spend more time preparing insightful questions that will extract information from your prospect instead of worrying about how you're going to wow them with your company's product or service. This will not only make the other person feel important, but also give you a chance to hone your discussion points to their interests. Not only will your sales pitch become all the more brilliant; your numbers will increase as you put those ears to use. As I always tell audiences in my sales workshops, leave a scar in your tongue if you have to, but spend more time using those two ears than anything else! Listening is one of the best gifts to give both your customers and your sales career! Michele Payn-Knoper founded Cause Matters to provide tools in sales, grassroots marketing, and championing agriculture. Learn more and review articles at www.mpk.info under Learning Resources. Receive her free monthly “Connections” e-newsletter filled with lively commentary on championing agriculture, grassroots marketing, and selling solutions by e-mailing newsletter@mpk.info.
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